They had decided that he was starting to drag them, the group, down. They were not making their targets. Their wives were unhappy. Their wives encouraged them to do something about him, saying: "If nothing's done, he could ruin it for all of us. He has to be stopped."
Productivity was down, and this they traced to him. He had been at meetings, and nodded, just as they had, and offered his opinion when others did, and it had been just like theirs. Everything was going smoothly and things seemed to be perfectly balanced. They felt better about themselves, to be part of a thriving organisation. Their confidence was high, and they had increasingly acrobatic and fulfilling sex with their wives.
But his attitude changed, and he started to question decisions they had made. To poke holes in the general good feeling. They didn't like that. It started to affect their performance in bed. Their wives asked that something be done.
They had seen him, the ungainly way he walked down the corridor, the suits which had begun to depart from the uniform dark blue they had worn for so many years. He started to order exotic sounding food at lunchtime from outside contractors while they sat in the canteen plotting their revenge.
"We have to stop him," they said. They agreed with this statement. He must be stopped. Morale was at an all time low. They didn't mention their trouble in bed with their wives. They would talk to him, they said. He was obviously having a nervous breakdown.
"Probably trouble in bed with his wife," they said. And they all laughed.
They knocked at the door of his office. They had been planning this, this chat, all day. It was now the evening, and the low sun in the sky burned with a primal glow.
He answered, and there they were.
They sprung into action, and grabbed him by the throat. They held him down while they hit him hard in the face with the sleek metal base of his chair. They hit him hard and held him there and didn't stop until he lay there in dark brown blood. He had stopped moving, and he lay there still as they stood around and congratulated themselves on another problem solved.